_HERALDIC EMBLEMS, OR EMBLEMS APPLIED TO HERALDRY._
KNOTTED together as are Emblems and the very language of Heraldry, we
must expect to find Emblem writers devoting some at least of their
inventions to heraldic purposes. This has been done to a very
considerable extent by the Italians, especially by Paolo Giovio,
Domenichi, Ruscelli, and Symeoni; but in several other authors also
there occur heraldic devices among their more general emblems. These are
not full coats of arms and the complete emblazonnes of “the gentleman’s
science,” but rather cognizances, or badges, by which persons and
families of note may be distinguished. In this respect Shakespeare
entirely agrees with the Emblem writers; neither he nor they give us the
quarterings complete, but they single out for honourable mention some
prominent mark or sign.
I attempt not to arrange the subject according to the Rules of the Art,
but to exhibit instances in which Shakespeare and the Emblematists
agree, of Poetic Heraldry, the Heraldry of Reward for Heroic
Achievements, and the Heraldry of Imaginative Devices.
Of Poetic Heraldry the chief type is that bird of renown, which was a
favourite with Shakespeare, and from which he has been named by general
consent, “the Swan of Avon.” A white swan upon a shield occurs both in
Alciat and in Whitney, and is expressly named _Insignia Poetarum_,—“The
poets’ ensigns.”
The swan, in fact, was sacred to Apollo and the Muses; and hence was
supposed to be musical. Æschylus, in his _Agamemnon,_ makes Cassandra
speak of the fable, when the Chorus bewail her sad destiny (vv. 1322,
3),—
“Ἃπαξ ἔπ’ εἰπεῖν ῥῆσιν ἢ θρῆνον θέλω
ἐμὸν τὸν αὐτῆς.”
_i.e._,—“Yet once again I wish for her to speak forth prophecy or
lamentation, even my own,”—and Clytæmnēstra mentions the singing of the
swan at the point of death (vv. 1444–7),—
“Ὁ μὲν γὰρ οὕτως· ἡ δέ τοι κύκνου δίκην
τὸν ὓστατον μέλψασα θανάσιμον γόον
κεῖται φίλητωρ, τοῦδ’, ἐμοὶ δ’ ἐπηγαγεν
εὐνης παροψώνημα τῆς ἐμῆς χλιδῆς.”
Which is to this effect: that when she has sung the last mortal
lamentation, according to the custom of the swan, she lies down as a
lover, and offers to me the solace of the bed of my joy.
[Illustration: _Horapollo, ed. 1551._]
This notion of the singing of the swan is to be traced even to the
hieroglyphics of Egypt. In answer to the question, “Πῶς γέροντα
μουσικόν·”—how to represent “an old man musical?”—Horapollo, edition
Paris, 1551, p. 136, replies,—
“Ιἐροντα μουσικὸν βουλόμενοι σημῇναι, κύκνον ζωγραφοῦσιν. οὑ~τος γαρ
ἡδύτατον μέλος ᾅδει γηράσκων.”
_i.e._—“Wishing to signify an old man musical, they paint a swan; for
this bird sings its sweetest melody when growing old.” Virgil frequently
speaks of swans, both as melodious and as shrill voiced. Thus in the
_Æneid_, vii. 700–3; xi. 457,—
“Cum sese è pastu referunt, et longa canoros
Dant per colla modos: sonat amnis et Asia longè
Pulsa palus.”
_i.e._—“When they return from feeding, and through their long necks give
forth melodious measures; the river resounds and the Asian marsh from
far.”
“Piscosóve amne Padusæ
Dant sonitum rauci per stagna loquacia cycni.”[119]
_i.e._—“Or on the fish-abounding river Po the hoarse swans give forth a
sound through the murmuring pools.”
Horace, _Carm._ iv. 2. 25, names Pindar _Dircæum cycnum_,—“the Dircæan
swan;” and _Carm._ ii. 20. 10, likens himself to an _album alitem_,—“a
white-winged creature;” which a few lines further on he terms a _canorus
ales_,—“a melodious bird,”—and speaks of his apotheosis to immortal
fame.[120]
Anacreon is called by Antipater of Sidon, _Anthol. Græc. Carm._ 76,
κύκνος Τηϊος,—“the Teïan swan.”
Poets, too, after death, were fancifully supposed to assume the form of
swans. It was believed also that swans foresaw their own death, and
previously sang their own elegy. Thus in Ovid, _Metam._ xiv. 430,—
“Carmina jam monens canit exequialia Cygnus,”—
“Now dying the Swan chants its funereal songs.”
Very beautifully does Plato advert to this fiction in his account of the
conversation of Socrates with his friends on the day of his execution.
(See _Phædon_, Francfort edition, 1602, p. 77, 64A.) They were fearful
of causing him trouble and vexation; but he reminds them they should not
think him inferior in foresight to the swans; for these,—
“Fall a singing, as soon as they perceive that they are about to
die, and sing far more sweetly than at any former time, being glad that
they are about to go away to the God whose servants they are.... They
possess the power of prophesying, and foreseeing the blessings of Hades
they sing and rejoice exceedingly. Now I imagine that I am also a
fellow-servant with the Swans and sacred to the same God, and that I
have received from the same Master a power of foresight not inferior to
theirs, so that I could depart from life itself with a mind no more cast
down.”
Thus the melodious dirge of the swan was attributed to the same kind of
prescience which enables good men to look forward with delight to that
time “when this mortal shall put on immortality.”
The “PICTA POESIS,” p. 28, adopts the same fancy of the swan singing at
the end of life, but makes it the emblem of “old age eloquent.” Thus,—
“FACVNDA SENECTVS.
“CANDIDA Cygnus auis suprema ætate canora est:
Inquam verti homines tabula picta docet,
Nam sunt canitie Cygni dulciq. canore,
Virtute illustres, eloquioque senes.
_Dulce vetus vinum: senis est oratio dulcis,
Dulcior hoc ipso quò sapientior est._”
_i.e._—“At the end of life tuneful is the bird, the white swan, into
which the painted tablet teaches that men are changed, for swans are
illustrious from hoariness and the sweet singing, old men illustrious
for virtue and for eloquence. Old wine is sweet; of an old man sweet is
the speech; sweeter, for this very cause, the wiser it is.”
Shakespeare himself adopts this notion in the _Merchant of Venice_ (act
i. sc. 2, l. 24, vol. ii. p. 286), when he says, “Holy men at their
death have good inspirations.”
Reusner, however, luxuriating in every variety of silvery and snowy
whiteness, represents the swan as especially the symbol of the _pure
simplicity of truth_. (_Emblemata_, lib. ii. 31, pp. 91, 92, ed. 1581.)
Simplicitas veri ſana.
[Illustration: _Reusner, 1581._]
_EMBLEMA XXXI._
“_Albo candidius quid est olore,
Argento, niue, lilio, ligustro?
Fides candida, candidiq’ mores,
Et mens candida, candidi sodalis.
Te Schedi niueam fidem Melisse,
Moratum benè, candidamq’ mentem
Possidere sodalis integelli:
Ligustro niueo nitentiorem:
Argento niueo beatiorem:
Albis liliolis fragrantiorem:
Cygnis candidulis decentiorem:
Armorum niueus docet tuorum
Cygnus: liliolis decorus albis:
Phœbea redimitus ora lauro.
Albo candidior cygnus ligustro:
Argento preciosior beato:
Cui nec par eboris decus, nec auri,
Nec gemmæ valor est, nitorq’ pulcræ:
Et si pulcrius est in orbe quicquam._”
_i.e._—“Than a white swan what is brighter,—than silver, snow, the
lily, the privet? Bright faith and bright morals,—and the bright mind of
a bright companion. That thou of good morals, O Schedius Melissus, dost
possess snow-like faith, and the bright mind of an uncorrupted
companion;—that (thou art) more fair than the snowy privet,—more blessed
than the snowy silver,—more fragrant than the white lilies,—more comely
than the little bright swans,—the snowy swan on thy arms doth teach: a
swan handsome with white lilies, encircled as to its features with the
laurel of Phœbus; a swan brighter than the white privet,—more precious
than the blessed silver; to which cannot be equalled the comeliness of
ivory, or of gold; nor the worth and the splendour of a beautiful gem:
and if in the world there is any thing more beautiful still.”
To a short, but very learned dissertation on the subject, and to the
device of a swan on a tomb, in his work, _De Volatilibus_, edition 1595,
Emb. 23, Joachim Camerarius affixes the motto, “SIBI CANIT ET ORBI,”—_It
sings for itself and for the world_,—
“_Ipsa suam celebrat sibi mens bene conscia mortem,
Vt solet herbiferum Cygnus ad Eridanum._”
_i.e._—“The mind conscious of good celebrates its own death for
itself; as the swan is accustomed to do on the banks of the grassy
Eridanus.”[121]
Shakespeare’s expressions, however, as to the swan, correspond more
closely with the stanzas of Alciat (edition Lyons, 1551, p. 197) which
are contained in the woodcut on next page.
Whitney (p. 126) adopts the same ideas, but enlarges upon them, and
brings out a clearer moral interpretation, fortifying himself with
quotations from Ovid, Reusner, and Horace,—
“The Martiall Captaines ofte, do marche into the fielde,
With Egles, or with Griphins fierce, or Dragons, in theire shielde.
But Phœbus sacred birde, let Poëttes moste commende.
Who, as it were by skill deuine, with songe forshowes his ende.
And as his tune delightes: for rarenes of the same.
So they with sweetenes of theire verse, shoulde winne a lasting name.
And as his colour white: Sincerenes doth declare.
So Poëttes must bee cleane, and pure, and must of crime beware.
For which respectes the Swanne, should in their Ensigne stande.
No forren fowle, and once suppos’de kinge of LIGVRIA Lande.”
Inſignia Poëtarum.
_Gentiles clypeos ſunt qui in Iouis alite geſtant,
Sunt quibus aut Serpens, aut Leo ſigna ferunt.
Dira ſed hæc Vatum fugiant animalia ceras,
Doctaque, ſuſtineat ſtemmata pulcher Olor.
Hic Phœbo ſacer, & nostræ regionis alumnus:
Rex, olim veteres ſeruat adhuc titulos_.
[Illustration: _Alciat, Lugd. 1551_, p. 197.]
In the very spirit of these Emblems of the Swan, the great dramatist
fashions some of his poetical images and most tender descriptions. Thus
in _King John_ (act v. sc. 7, lines 1–24, vol. iv. p. 91), in the
Orchard Scene at Swinstead Abbey, the king being in his mortal sickness,
Prince Henry demands, “Doth he still rage?” And Pembroke replies,—
“He is more patient
Than when you left him; even now he sung.
_P. Hen._ O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes
In their continuance will not feel themselves.
Death, having prey’d upon the outward parts,
Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now
Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
With many legions of strange fantasies,
Which in their throng and press to that last hold,
Confound themselves. ’Tis strange that death should sing.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.”
To the same purport, in _Henry VIII._ (act iv. sc. 2, l. 77, vol. vi. p.
88), are the words of Queen Katharine, though she does not name the
poet’s bird,—
“I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith,
Cause the musicians play me that sad note
I named my knell, whilst I sit meditating
On that celestial harmony I go to.”
And in the Casket Scene, so often alluded to (_Merchant of Venice_, act
iii. sc. 2, l. 41, vol. ii. p. 325), when Bassanio is about to try his
fortune, Portia thus addresses him,—
“If you do love me, you will find me out.
Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof.
Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music: that the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream,
And watery death-bed for him. He may win;
And what is music then? Then music is
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: such it is
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear
And summon him to marriage.”
In the sad ending, too, of the _Moor of Venice_ (act v. sc. 2, l. 146,
vol. viii. p. 581), after Othello had said of Desdemona,—
“Nay, had she been true,
If heaven would make me such another world
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,
I’d not have sold her for it:”
and the full proof of innocence having been brought forward, Emilia
desires to be laid by her dead “Mistress’ side,” and inquires mournfully
(l. 249, p. 586),—
“What did thy song bode, lady?
Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,
And die in music. [_Singing._] Willow, willow, willow.
Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor,
So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true;
So speaking as I think, I die, I die. [_Dies._]”
After this long dissertation _anent_ swans, there may be readers who
will press hard upon me with the couplet from Coleridge,—
“Swans sing before they die: ’twere no bad thing,
Should certain persons die before they sing.”
From Heraldry itself the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act iii. sc. 2, l.
201, vol. ii. p. 239) borrows one of its most beautiful comparisons; it
is in the passage where Helena so passionately reproaches Hermia for
supposed treachery,—
“O, is all forgot?
All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted;
But yet an union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.”
In speaking of the Heraldry of Heroic Achievements, we may refer to the
“wreath of chivalry” (p. 168), already described from the _Pericles_.
There were, however, other wreaths which the Romans bestowed as the
rewards of great and noble exploits. Several of these are set forth by
the Emblem writers; we will select one from Whitney (p. 115), _Fortiter
& feliciter_,—“Bravely and happily.”
[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]
To this device of an armed hand grasping a spear, on which are hanging
four garlands or crowns of victory, the stanzas are,—
“MARC SERGIVS nowe, I maye recorde by righte,
A Romane boulde, whome foes coulde not dismaye:
Gainste HANNIBAL hee often shewde his mighte,
Whose righte hande loste, his lefte hee did assaye
Vntill at lengthe an iron hande hee proou’d:
And after that CREMONA siege remoou’d.
Then, did defende PLACENTIA in distresse,
And wanne twelue houldes, by dinte of sworde in France,
What triumphes great? were made for his successe,
Vnto what state did fortune him aduance?
What speares? what crounes? what garlandes hee possest;
The honours due for them, that did the beste.”
Of such honours, like poets generally, Shakespeare often tells. After
the triumph at Barnet (_3 Henry VI._, act v. sc. 3, l. 1, vol. v. p.
324), King Edward says to his friends,—
“Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,
And we are grac’d with wreaths of victory.”
Wreaths of honour and of victory are figured by Joachim Camerarius, “EX
RE HERBARIA,” edition 1590, in the 99th Emblem. The laurel, the oak, and
the olive garlands are ringed together; the motto being, “HIS ORNARI AVT
MORI,”—_With these to be adorned or to die_,—
“_Fronde oleæ, lauri, quercus contexta corolla
Me decoret, sine qua viuere triste mihi_,”—
[Sidenote: _i.e._]
“From bough of olive, laurel, oak, a woven crown
Adorns me, without which to live is sadness to me.”
Among other illustrations are quoted the words of the _Iliad,_ which are
applied to Hector, τεθνάτω, οὔ οἱ ἀεικὲς ἀμυνομένω περὶ πάτρης,—“Let
death come, it is not unbecoming to him who dies defending his country.”
Of the three crowns two are named (_3 Henry VI._, act iv. sc. 6, l. 32,
vol. v. p. 309), when Warwick rather blames the king for preferring him
to Clarence, and Clarence replies,—
“No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,
To whom the heavens in thy nativity
Adjudged an olive branch and laurel crown,
As likely to be blest in peace and war,
And therefore I yield thee my free consent.”
The introduction to _King Richard III._ (act i. sc. 1, l. 1, vol. v. p.
473) opens suddenly with Gloster’s declaration,—
“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds, that lour’d upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean bury’d.”
“Sun of York” is a direct allusion to the heraldic cognizance which
Edward IV. adopted, “in memory,” we are told, “of the _three suns_,”
which are said to have appeared at the battle which he gained over the
Lancastrians at Mortimer’s Cross. Richard then adds,—
“Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.”
We meet, too, in the _Pericles_ (act ii. sc. 3, l. 9, vol. ix. p. 345)
with the words of Thaisa to the victor,—
“But you, my knight and guest;
To whom this wreath of victory I give,
And crown you king of this day’s happiness.”
But in the pure Roman manner, and according to the usage of
Emblematists, Shakespeare also tells of “victors’ crowns;” following, as
would appear, “LES DEVISES HEROIQVES” of Paradin, edition Anvers, 1562,
f. 147 _verso_, which contains several instances of garlands for noble
brows. Of these, one is entitled, _Seruati gratia ciuis_,—“For sake of a
citizen saved.”
[Illustration]
The garland is thus described in Paradin’s French,—
“_La Courõne, apellee Ciuique, eſtoit dõnee par le Citoyẽ, au Citoyẽ
qu’il auoit ſauué en guerre: en repreſentatiõ de vie ſauuee. Et eſtoit
cete Courõne, tiſſue de fueilles, ou petis rameaus de Cheſne: pour autãt
qu’au Cheſne, la vielle antiquité, ſouloit prẽdre ſa ſubſtãce, ſõ mãger,
ou sa nourriture_.”
_i.e._—“The crown called Civic was given by the Citizen to the
Citizen[122] whom he had saved in war; in testimony of life saved. And
this Crown was an inweaving of leaves or small branches of Oak; inasmuch
as from the Oak, old antiquity was accustomed to take its subsistence,
its food, or its nourishment.”
“Among the rewards” for the Roman soldiery, remarks Eschenburg (_Manual
of Classical Literature_, p. 274), “golden or gilded crowns were
particularly common; as, the _corona castrensis_, or _vallaris_, to him
who first entered the enemy’s entrenchments; _corona muralis_, to him
who first scaled the enemy’s walls; and _corona navalis_, for seizing a
vessel of the enemy in a sea-fight; also wreaths and crowns formed of
leaves and blossoms; as the _corona civica_, of oak leaves, conferred
for freeing a citizen from death or captivity at the hands of the enemy;
the _corona obsidionalis_, of grass, for delivering a besieged city; and
the _corona triumphalis_, of laurel, worn by a triumphing general.”
Shakespeare’s acquaintance with these Roman customs we find, where we
should expect it to be, in the _Coriolanus_ and in the _Julius Cæsar_.
Let us take the instances; first, from the _Coriolanus_, act i. sc. 9,
l. 58, vol. vi. p. 304; act i. sc. 3, l. 7, p. 287; act ii. sc. 2, l.
84, p. 323; and act ii. sc. 1, l. 109, p. 312. Cominius thanks the gods
that “our Rome hath such a soldier” as Caius Marcius, and declares (act
i. sc. 9, l. 58),—
“Therefore, be it known,
As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius
Wears this war’s garland: in token of the which,
My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,
With all his trim belonging; and from this time.
For what he did before Corioli, call him,
With all the applause and clamour of the host,
CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS. Bear
The addition nobly ever!”
With most motherly pride Volumnia rehearses the brave deed to Virgilia,
her son’s wife (act i. sc. 3, l. 7),—
“When, for a day of kings’ entreaties, a mother should not sell him
an hour from her beholding; I, considering how honour would become such
a person; that it was no better than picture-like to hang by the wall,
if renown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek danger where he
was like to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him; from whence he
returned, his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not
more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than now in first seeing
he had proved himself a man.”
And the gaining of that early renown is most graphically drawn by
Cominius, the consul (act ii. sc. 2, l. 84),—
“At sixteen years,
When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought
Beyond the mark of others: our then dictator,
Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight,
When with his Amazonian chin he drove
The bristled lips before him: he bestrid
An o'er press’d Roman, and i’ the consul’s view
Slew three opposers: Tarquin’s self he met,
And struck him on his knee: in that day’s feats,
When he might act the woman in the scene,
He proved best man i’ the field, and for his meed
Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age
Man-enter’d thus, he waxed like a sea;
And, in the brunt of seventeen battles since,
He lurch’d all swords of the garland.”
The successful general is expected in Rome, and this dialogue is held
between Menenius, Virgilia, and Volumnia (act ii. sc. 1, l. 109, p.
312),—
“_Men._ Is he not wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.
_Vir._ O, no, no, no.
_Vol._ O, he is wounded; I thank the gods for’t.
_Men._ So do I too, if it be not too much: brings a’ victory in his
pocket? The wounds become him.
_Vol._ On’s brows: Menenius, he comes the third time home with the
oaken garland.”
Next, we have an instance from the _Julius Cæsar_ (act v. sc. 3, l. 80,
vol. vii. p. 409), on the field of Philippi, when “in his red blood
Cassius’ day is set,” Titanius asks,—
“Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius?
Did I not meet thy friends? and did not they
Put on my brows this wreath of victory,
And bid me give it thee? Didst thou not hear their shouts?
Alas, thou hast misconstrued every thing!
But, hold thee, take this garland on thy brow;
Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I
Will do his bidding.”
The heraldry of honours from sovereign princes, as testified to, both by
Paradin in his “DEVISES HEROIQVES,” edition Antwerp, 1562, folio 12_v_,
and 25, 26, and by Shakespeare, embraces but two or three instances, and
is comprised in the magniloquent lines (_1 Henry VI_., act iv. sc. 7, l.
60, vol. v. p. 80) in which Sir William Lucy inquires,—
“But where’s the great Alcides of the field,
Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,
Created, for his rare success in arms,
Great Earl of Washford, Waterford and Valence;
Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,
Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
The thrice-victorious Lord of Falconbridge:
Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
Worthy Saint Michael and the Golden Fleece;
Great marshal to Henry the Sixth
Of all his wars within the realm of France?”
[Illustration: _Paradin, ed. 1562, p. 12v._]
From Paradin we learn that the Order of St. Michael had for its motto
_Immensi tremor Oceani_,—“The trembling of the immeasurable ocean,”—and
for its badge the adjoining collar.—
“This order was instituted by Louis XI., King of France, in the year
1469.[123] He directed for its ensign and device a collar of gold, made
with shells laced together in a double row, held firm upon little chains
or meshes of gold; in the middle of which collar on a rock was a
gold-image of Saint Michael, appearing in the front. And this the king
did (with respect to the Archangel) in imitation of King Charles VII.
his father; who had formerly borne that image as his ensign, even at his
entry into Rouen. By reason always (it is said) of the apparition, on
the bridge of Orleans, of Saint Michael defending the city against the
English in a famous attack. This collar then of the royal order and
device of the Knights of the same is the sign or true ensign of their
nobleness, virtue, concord, fidelity and friendship; Pledge, reward and
remuneration of their valour and prowess. By the richness and purity of
the gold are pointed out their high rank and grandeur; by the similarity
or likeness of its shells, their equality, or the equal fraternity of
the Order (following the Roman senators, who also bore shells on their
arms for an ensign and a device); by the double lacing of them together,
their invincible and indissoluble union; and by the image of Saint
Michael, victory over the most dangerous enemy. A device then instituted
for the solace, protection and assurance of this so noble a kingdom;
and, on the contrary, for the terror, dread and confusion of the enemies
of the same.”
_Precium non vile laborum_,—
“No mean reward of labours.”
[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]
Paradin (f. 25) is also our authority with respect to the Order of the
Golden Fleece, its motto and device being thus presented:—
“The order of the Golden Fleece,” says Paradin, “was instituted by
Philip, Duke of Burgundy, styled the Good, in the year 1429, for which
he named[124] twenty-four Knights without reproach, besides himself, as
chief and founder, and gave to each one of them for ensign of the said
Order a Collar of gold composed of his device of the Fusil, with the
Fleece of gold appearing in front; and this (as people say) was in
imitation of that which Jason acquired in Colchis, taken customarily for
Virtue, long so much loved by this good Duke, that he merited this
surname of Goodness, and other praises contained on his Epitaph, where
there is mention made of this Order of the Fleece, in the person of the
Duke saying,—
'Pour maintenir l’Eglise, qui est de Dieu maison,
J’ai mis sus le noble Ordre, qu’on nomme la Toison.'”
The expedition of the Argonauts, and Jason’s carrying off of the Golden
Fleece may here be appropriately mentioned; they are referred to by the
Emblem writers, as well as the exploit of Phrixus, the brother of Helle,
in swimming across the Hellespont on the golden-fleeced ram. The
_former_ Whitney introduces when describing the then new and wonderful
circumnavigation of the globe by Sir Francis Drake (p. 203),—
“Let GRÆCIA then forbeare, to praise her IASON boulde?
Who throughe the watchfull dragons pass’d, to win the fleece of goulde.
Since by MEDEAS helpe, they weare inchaunted all,
And IASON without perrilles, pass’de: the conqueste therfore small?
But, hee, of whome I write, this noble minded DRAKE,
Did bringe away his goulden fleece, when thousand eies did wake.”
Diues indoctus.
[Illustration: _Alciat, 1551._]
_Tranat aquas reſidẽs precioſo in vellere Phrixus,
Et flauam impauidus per mare ſcandit ouem.
Ecquid id est? vir ſenſu hebeti, ſed diuite gaza,
Coniugis aut ſerui quem regit arbitrium_.
The _latter_ forms the subject of one of Alciat’s Emblems, edition
Antwerp, 1581, Emb. 189, in which, seated on the precious fleece,
Phrixus crosses the waters, and fearless in the midst of the sea mounts
the tawny sheep, the type of “the rich man unlearned.” Whitney (p. 214)
substitutes _In diuitem, indoctum_,—“To the rich man, unlearned,”—and
thus paraphrases the original,—
“On goulden fleece, did Phryxus passe the waue,
And landed safe, within the wished baie:
By which is ment, the fooles that riches haue,
Supported are, and borne throughe Lande, and Sea:
And those enrich’de by wife, or seruauntes goodds,
Are borne by them like Phryxus through the floodds.”
In a similar emblem, Beza, edition Geneva, 1580, Emb. 3, alludes to the
daring deed of Phrixus,—
“_Aurea mendaci vates non vnicvs ore
Vellera phrixeæ commemorauit ouis.
Nos, te, Christe, agnum canimus. Nam diuite gestas
Tu verè veras vellere solus opes._”
Thus rendered in the French version,—
“_Maint poete discourt de sa bouche menteuse
Sur vne toison d’or. Nous, à iuste raison,
Te chantons, Christ, agneau, dont la riche toison
Est l’vnique thresor qui rend l’Eglise heureuse._”
The _Merchant of Venice_ (act. i. sc. 1, l. 161, vol. ii. p. 284)
presents Shakespeare’s counterpart to the Emblematists; it is in
Bassanio’s laudatory description of Portia, as herself the golden
fleece,—
“In Belmont is a lady richly left;
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages:
Her name is Portia; nothing undervalued
To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia:
Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors: and her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece:
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.”
To this may be added a line or two by Gratiano, l. 241, p. 332,—
“How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?
I know he will be glad of our success;
We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.”
The heraldry of Imaginative Devices in its very nature offers a wide
field where the fancy may disport itself. Here things the most
incongruous may meet, and the very contrariety only justify their being
placed side by side.
Let us begin with the device, as given in the “TETRASTICHI MORALI,” p.
56, edition Lyons, 1561, by Giovio and Symeoni, used between 1498 and
1515; it is the device
_DI LVIGI XII. RE
DI FRANCIA._
[Illustration: _Giovio and Symeoni, 1561._]
to the motto, “Hand to hand and afar off”—
Cominus & eminus.
_Di lontano & da preſſo il Re Luigi,
Feri’l nimico, & lo riduſſe à tale,
Che dall’ Indico al lito Occidentale
Di ſua virtù ſi veggiono i veſtigi._
A Porcupine is the badge, and the stanza declares,—
“From far and from near the King Louis,
Smites the enemy and so reduces him,
That from the Indian to the Western shore,
Of his valour the traces are seen.”
Camerarius with the same motto and the like device testifies that this
was the badge of Louis XI., king of France, to whose praise he also
devotes a stanza,—
“_Cominus ut pugnat jaculis, atq. eminus histrix,
Rex bonus esto armis consiliisque potens._”
[Sidenote: _i.e._]
“As close at hand and far off the porcupine fights with its spines,
Let a good king be powerful in arms and in counsels.”
It was this Louis who laid claim to Milan, and carried Ludovic Sforza
prisoner to France. He defeated the Genoese after their revolt, and by
great personal bravery gained the victory of Agnadel over the Venetians
in 1509. At the same time he made war on Spain, England, Rome, and
Switzerland, and was in very deed the porcupine darting quills on every
side.
The well known application in _Hamlet_ (act. i. sc. 5, l. 13, vol. viii.
p. 35) of the chief characteristic of this vexing creature is part of
the declaration which the Ghost makes to the Prince of Denmark,—
“But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand an end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.”
And of “John Cade of Ashford,” in _2 Henry VI._ (act. iii. sc. 1, l.
360, vol. v. p. 162), the Duke of York avers,—
“In Ireland I have seen this stubborn Cade
Oppose himself against a troop of kernes;
And fought so long, ’till that his thighs with darts
Were almost like a sharp-quill’d porcupine.”
From the same source, Giovio’s and Symeoni’s “SENTENTIOSE IMPRESE,”
Lyons, 1561, p. 115, we also derive the cognizance,—
_DEL CAPITANO GIROLAMO_
MATTEI ROMANO.
[Illustration: _Giovio and Symeoni, 1561._]
_Diuora il ſtruzzo con ingorda furia
Il ferro, & lo ſmaltiſce poi pian piano,
Coſi (come dipinge il buon Romano)
Smaltir fa il tempo ogni maggiore ingiuria._
Spiritus duriſſima
coquit.
To this Ostrich, with a large iron nail in its mouth, and with a scroll
inscribed, “Courage digests the hardest things,” the stanza is devoted
which means,—
“Devour does the ostrich with eager greediness
The iron, and then very easily digests it,
So (as the good Romano represents)
Time causes every injury to be digested.”
Camerarius, to the same motto, _Ex Volatilibus_ (ed. 1595, p. 19),
treats us to a similar couplet,—
“_Magno animo fortis perferre pericula suevit,
Vllo nec facile frangitur ille metu_.”
[Sidenote: _i.e._]
“With mighty mind the brave grows accustomed to bear dangers,
Nor easily is that man broken by any fear.”
Shakespeare’s description of the ostrich, as given by Jack Cade, _2
Henry VI._ (act iv. sc. 10, l. 23, vol. v. p. 206), is in close
agreement with the ostrich device,—
“Here’s the lord of the soil,” he says, “come to seize me for a
stray, for entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt
betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king for carrying my head to
him; but I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword
like a great pin, ere thou and I part.”
Note the iron pin in the ostrich’s mouth.
Sola facta ſolum Deum ſequor.
[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]
“My Lady Bona of Savoy,” as Paradin (ed. 1562, fol. 165) names her,
“the mother of Ian Galeaz, Duke of Milan, finding herself a widow, made
a device on her small coins of a Phœnix in the midst of a fire, with
these words, ‘Being made lonely, I follow God alone.’ Wishing to signify
that, as there is in the world but one Phœnix, even so being left by
herself, she wished only to love conformably to the only God, in order
to live eternally.”[125]
The “TETRASTICHI MORALI” presents the same Emblem, as indeed do Giovio’s
“DIALOGO DELL’ IMPRESE,” &c., ed. Lyons, 1574, and “DIALOGVE DES
DEVISES,” &c., ed. Lyons, 1561;
_DI MADAMA BONA_
DI SAVIOA.
[Illustration: _Giovio, 1574 (diminished)._]
with the same motto, and the invariable Italian Quatrain,—
Sola facta solũ
Deũ sequor.
_Perduto ch’ hebbe il fido ſuo conſorte
La nobil Donna, qual Fenice ſola,
A Dio volſe ogni priego, ogni parola,
Dando vita al penſier con l’ altrui morte._
In English,—
“Lost had she her faithful consort,
The noble Lady, as a Phœnix lonely,
To God wills every prayer, every word
Giving life to consider death with others.”
The full description and characteristics of the Phœnix we reserve for
the section which treats of Emblems for Poetic Ideas; but the
loneliness, or if I may use the term, the oneliness of this fabulous
bird Shakespeare occasionally dwells upon.
In the _Cymbeline_ (act i. sc. 6, l. 12, vol. ix. p. 183), Posthumus and
Iachimo had made a wager as to the superior qualities and beauties of
their respective ladies, and Iachimo takes from Leonatus an introduction
to Imogen; the Dialogue thus proceeds,—
“_Iach._ The worthy Leonatus is in safety,
And greets your highness dearly. @span 6: [_Presents a letter._@
_Imo._ Thanks, good sir:
You're kindly welcome.
_Iach._ [_Aside._] All of her that is out of door most rich!
If she be furnish’d with a mind so rare,
She is alone the Arabian bird, and I
Have lost the wager.”
Rosalind, in _As You Like It_ (act iv. sc. 3, l. 15, vol. ii. p. 442),
thus speaks of the letter which Phebe, the shepherdess, had sent her,—
“She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as phœnix.”
The oneliness of the bird is, too, well set forth in the _Tempest_ (act
iii. sc. 3, l. 22, vol. i. p. 50),—
“In Arabia
There is one tree, the phœnix' throne; one phœnix
At this hour reigning there.”
To the Heraldry of Imaginative Devices might be referred the greater
part of the coats of arms, badges and cognizances by which noble and
gentle families are distinguished. To conclude this branch of our
subject, I will name a woodcut which was probably peculiar to Geffrey
Whitney at the time when Shakespeare wrote, though accessible to the
dramatist from other sources; it is the fine frontispiece to the _Choice
of Emblemes_, setting forth the heraldic honours and arms of Robert,
Earl of Leycester, and in part of his brother, Ambrose, Earl of Warwick.
Each of these noblemen bore the same crest, and it was, what
Shakespeare, _2 Henry VI._ (act v. sc. 1, l. 203, vol. v. p. 215), terms
“the rampant bear chained to the ragged staff.”
[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]
How long this had been the cognizance of the Earls of Warwick, and
whether it was borne by all the various families of the Saxon and Norman
races who held the title,—by the Beauchamps, the Nevilles, and the
Dudleys, admits of doubt; but it is certain that such was the cognizance
in the reign of Henry VI. and in that of Elizabeth.
According to Dugdale’s _Antiquities of Warwickshire_, edition 1730, p.
398, the monument of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in Edward III.’s
time, has a lion, not a bear; and a lamb for his Countess, the Lady
Katherine Mortimer. Also on the monument of another Earl (p. 404), who
died in 1401, the bear does not appear; but on the monument of Richard
Beauchamp, who died “the last day of Aprill, the year of our lord god
1434,” the inscriptions are crowded with bears, instead of commas and
colons; and the recumbent figure of the Earl has a muzzled bear at his
feet (p. 410). The Nevilles now succeeded to the title, and a limner’s
or designer’s very curious bill, of the fifteenth year of Henry VI.,
1438, shows that the bear and ragged staff were then both in use and in
honour,—
“First CCCC Pencels bete with the Raggidde staffe of silver
pris the pece v d. 08_l._ 06_s._ 00
Item for a grete Stremour for the Ship of XI yerdis length and
IIII yerdis in brede, with a grete Bere and Gryfon holding
a Raggid staffe, poudrid full of raggid staves; and for a
grate Crosse of S. George for the lymmynge and portraying 01 . 06 . 08
Item XVIII Standardes of worsted, entretailled with the
Bere and a Chayne, pris the pece xii d. 00 . 18 . 00”
Among the monuments in the Lady Chapel at Warwick is a full length
figure of “Ambrose Duddeley,” who died in 1589, and of a muzzled bear
crouching at his feet. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, his brother,
died in 1588; and on his magnificent tomb, in the same chapel, is seen
the same cognizance of the bear and ragged staff. The armorial bearings,
however, are a little different from those which Whitney figures.
If, according to the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare’s works,
1863–1866, vol. v. p. vii., “the play upon which the Second part of
Henry the Sixth was founded was first printed in quarto, in 1594;” or
if, as some with as much reason have supposed,[126] it existed even
previous to 1591, it is not likely that these monuments of elaborate
design and costly and skilled workmanship could have been completed, so
that from them Shakespeare had taken his description of “old Nevil’s
crest.” Nathan Drake’s _Shakspeare and his Times_ (vol. i. pp. 410, 416)
tells us that he left Stratford for London “about the year 1586, or
1587;” yet “the _family residence_ of Shakspeare was _always_ at
Stratford: that he himself originally went _alone_ to London, and that
he spent the greater part of every year there _alone_, annually,
however, and probably for some months, returning to the bosom of his
family, and that this alternation continued until he finally left the
capital.”
Of course, had the monuments in question existed before the composition
of the _Henry VI._, his annual visits to his native Warwickshire would
have made them known to him, and he would thus have noted the family
cognizance of the brother Earls; but reason favours the conjecture that
these monuments in the Lady Chapel were not the sources of his
knowledge.
Common rumour, indeed, may have supplied the information; but as Geffrey
Whitney’s book appeared in 1586, its first novelty would be around it
about the time at which Shakespeare was engaged in producing his _Henry
VI._ That Emblem-book was dedicated to “ROBERT Earle of LEYCESTER;” and,
as we have said, contains a drawing, remarkably graphic, of a bear
grasping a ragged staff, having a collar and chain around him, and
standing erect on the helmet’s burgonet. There is also a less elaborate
sketch of the same badge on the title-page to the second part of
Whitney’s _Emblemes_, p. 105.
Most exactly, most artistically, does the dramatist ascribe the same
crest, in the same attitude, and in the same standing place, to Richard
Nevil, Earl of Warwick, the king-setter-up and putter-down of History.
In the fields between Dartford and Blackheath, in Kent, the two armies
of Lancaster and York are encamped; in the Dialogue, there is almost a
direct challenge from Lord Clifford to Warwick to meet upon the
battle-field. York is charged as a traitor by Clifford (_2 Henry VI._,
act v. sc. 1, l. 143, vol. v. p. 213), but replies,—
“I am the king, and thou a false-heart traitor.
Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,
That with the very shaking of their chains
They may astonish these fell-lurking curs:
Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.
_Enter the_ EARLS OF WARWICK _and_ SALISBURY.
_Clif._ Are these thy bears? we’ll bait thy bears to death,
And manacle the bear-ward in their chains,
If thou darest bring them to the baiting place.
_Rich._ Oft have I seen a hot o’erweening cur
Run back and bite, because he was withheld;
Who, being suffer’d with the bear’s fell paw,
Hath clapp’d his tail between his legs and cried:
And such a piece of service will you do,
If you oppose yourselves to match Lord Warwick.”
The Dialogue continues until just afterwards Warwick makes this taunting
remark to Clifford (l. 196),—
“_War._ You were best to go to bed and dream again,
To keep thee from the tempest of the field.
_Clif._ I am resolved to bear a greater storm
Than any thou canst conjure up to-day;
And that I’ll write upon thy burgonet,
Might I but know thee by thy household badge.
_War._ Now, by my father’s badge, old Nevil’s crest,
The rampant bear chain’d to the ragged staff,
This day I’ll wear aloft my burgonet,
As on a mountain top the cedar shows
That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,
Even to affright thee with the view thereof.
_Clif._ And from thy burgonet I’ll rend thy bear
And tread it underfoot with all contempt,
Despite the bear-ward that protects the bear.”
A closer correspondence between a picture and a description of it cannot
be desired; Shakespeare’s lines and Whitney’s frontispiece exactly
coincide;
“Like coats in heraldry
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.”
By Euclid’s axiom, “magnitudes which coincide are equal;” and though the
reasonings in geometry and those in heraldry are by no means of forces
identical, it may be a just conclusion; therefore, the coincidences and
parallelisms of Shakespeare, with respect to Heraldic Emblems, have
their original lines and sources in such writers as Giovio, Paradin, and
Whitney. It was not he who set up the ancient fortifications, but he has
drawn circumvallations around them, and his towers nod over against
theirs, though with no hostile rivalry.
[Illustration: _Horapollo, ed. 1551._]
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